“You’re beautiful,” I said quietly.
“I doubt that,” Raine snickered. “I’m always a mess in the morning.”
I had to correct her.
“A beautiful mess.”
Raine smiled. I was about to kiss her, but my phone buzzed with a text from John Paul.
Wakey wakey! Eggs and fuckin bakey!
I rolled my eyes.
“Who is that?” Raine asked.
“JP,” I said. “I have to get up.”
I took a quick shower. When I was done, I found fresh coffee waiting for me in the kitchen. Raine had her own cup in her hand, and she held onto it tightly without drinking.
“What happens now?” Raine asked. The tension in her voice was plain.
“I’m going to train with JP,” I said. “That will be for the next few days. After that, Landon said three weeks of training.”
“Where will you go for that?”
“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “Landon’s being in Miami makes me wonder if the tournament will take place somewhere around here, which would mean we stay close—in the same atmosphere. It’s best to train in the type of environment where you’re going to fight.”
“Where will I be?” Raine asked quietly.
Fuck. So much for my planning skills.
“I haven’t gotten that far,” I admitted. “I’ll talk to John Paul.”
“I could stay with Nick and Lindsay,” Raine suggested.
“No,” I said. “They can’t protect you.”
“We could go on a trip or something,” she said. “Stay out of the way?”
I shook my head.
“I want to know exactly where you are,” I replied. “If you’re not where I expect you to be, I won’t know if you’re safe or not.”
I was teetering on scaring her, which I didn’t want to do, but I wasn’t going to let her far from my sight if it could be helped. I moved closer and wrapped my arms around her. Raine placed her head on my shoulder and sighed.
“I hate this,” she whispered.
“I know,” I said. “I hate it, too. This time next month it will all be over, and you, me and Alex…well, we have to figure that part out.”
A thought occurred to me, and I leaned back and placed my palm on her cheek.
“I need you to help me figure that shit out,” I said. “I need you to get whatever the hell we’re gonna need with a kid around. I don’t know anything about that shit.”
“You think I do?”
I think you need to focus on something that isn’t about me killing people.
“I think you have a better chance of understanding it than I do. If you can put up with my childish ass, you can probably deal with a six-year-old as well.”
Raine gave me a tight lipped smile as another text from John Paul told me to come and meet him at the front door.
“I’ll be gone a while,” I told Raine, “just to the gym upstairs. Keep your phone close, and don’t open the fucking door for anyone, even if you think you know who it is.”
“Okay,” she said as she bit down on her lip.
“I’ve got you,” I said again, and she nodded.
I kissed her softly before we parted, and I went downstairs to meet John Paul at the entrance to our building. We headed up to the gym and started working out.
“Funny how old patterns fall back into place,” John Paul remarked as he watched me do leg presses on the machine. “It’s just like old times, isn’t it?”
“You knew about this the other day, didn’t you?” I accused.
“Maybe,” John Paul said as he winked at me. “Couldn’t say anything, but glad you took my advice anyway.”
“I thought it was an order,” I muttered. I pushed out another set of leg presses and then switched to dumbbells.
I kept it up until sweat was pouring off of me, and every muscle in my body ached. I was glad I had been spending some time at the gym lately because John Paul was ruthless on the weight training. I could keep up, but only barely.
I wasn’t about to let him know that, though.
So I pushed myself as much as humanly possible. It was territory I knew—push beyond your limits and never stop, never let go. I ached, I sweated, and I burned through sets like a maniac just to show John Paul that I could.
He knew exactly what I was doing.
“Is that all you got?” John Paul snorted. “You’re a wuss.”
“Fuck you,” I said as I slammed the weights down to the floor. “I don’t see you pushing out this many reps.”
“Not my training, bro.”
I extended my middle finger toward him as I completed another set of curls. At least I hadn’t lost much strength in my biceps, but I’d neglected leg workouts, and even I had to admit my gut was a little flabby from lack of ab work. I never should have let myself go so much. Now that Raine had to count on my strength, I wasn’t at my best.
I had to rectify that.
I also had to make sure she was safe even when I wasn’t around.
“I need Raine protected,” I said to John Paul as I shifted my weight on the bench and switched arms. “I want someone I trust around her all the time when I’m not.”
“Not sure who that would be,” John Paul said. “Is there anyone you trust?”
“You,” I said simply.
“You want me looking after your chick?”
“Who else?”
John Paul scratched his arm, looked up at the ceiling, and considered for a moment.
“Can I fuck her?”
I stood up, dropped the dumbbell to the floor, and punched him in the face.
He stumbled backward from the blow but righted himself quickly as he laughed and rubbed at his chin.
“I guess that’s a no.”
“Fucking right it’s a no,” I said as I glared at him. “Don’t you fucking touch her.”
“Duly noted.” He laughed again.
We finished our session, and John Paul came with me back to the condo. Raine had her school books spread out on the couch and coffee table, but I could tell she wasn’t getting any actual work done. I sat down beside her and tossed my arm over her shoulder, pulling her close, as John Paul helped himself to a bottle of water.
“Ugh!” Raine groaned as she placed her hands on my chest and pushed me away. “You stink.”
“You should have smelled him back in the day of booze and whores,” John Paul said.
Like I really needed him to bring that shit up.
“Don’t make me fucking beat you in front of her,” I snapped. “I bet I can find some other meathead around here to train with me.”
“Won’t be as pretty as I am,” John Paul said. He emptied the water bottle and tossed it into the bin. “I’m out. See you bright and early tomorrow.”
I trained with John Paul for four days—weights, endurance, and hand-to-hand fighting. I was sore, bruised, and tired on the fifth day when he came to the door and told me we weren’t training that morning.
“Meeting time,” he said simply.
We met Landon a few blocks away in a hotel room. He looked uncharacteristically tired and a little on edge. We sat down at a small, round table and waited for him to start.
“Your competition,” Landon said. He pushed a folder to me across the table, and I opened it. There were five sets of documents inside with names and pictures. “Study them. See what you can learn about them, and make sure you know how to take each and every one of them out.”
I scanned the documents, stopping immediately when I saw a familiar face.
Fuck me.
Even without the sunglasses, I recognized the picture as the dude on the beach with the ridiculous, fucking tongue twister, only now it didn’t seem so ridiculous. Now I saw it as the threat it clearly represented.
“You’re the pheasant.”
Evan Arden. He was listed as Rinaldo Moretti’s key hit man. The picture showed him at a shooting range with a high caliber rifle in his hands.
/> “I believe I may have mentioned that he’s your primary concern.”
“I’ve met him,” I said quietly.
Landon eyed me.
“When?”
“A couple weeks ago,” I said. “He talked to me on the beach when I was out for a run.”
“Recon is a specialty of his,” Landon said. “He’s probably been on a rooftop with his sniper rifle pointed at you already.”
“He’s a sniper?” John Paul said.
“Former Marine,” Landon informed us. “One of the best shooters they’ve ever seen. I knew of him through my military contacts before he got himself involved with Rinaldo Moretti. He’s taken out hundreds of Moretti’s enemies over the years, but he disappeared shortly after the war broke out.”
“Seems like a weird time to take off,” John Paul remarked.
“I couldn’t get a lot of detail,” Landon said, “but I got the idea he might have been at the crux of the issue that started this war in the first place.”
“You think he had sights on me but didn’t shoot me?”
“Arden knows the rules.” Landon stood up and walked over to the window to look out at the ocean. “Taking out a player once the tournament has been announced would inflame the war, not end it. He’s military, and following orders is in his blood. He’s also probably the next in line to run that organization if something happened to Moretti. Moretti’s only other options are his daughter Luisa, who might very well do it, or an illegitimate son he barely recognizes. Ending the feud is in Arden’s best interest.”
“But Arden hasn’t been involved in the war recently?” John Paul asked.
“Not at all,” Landon said. “He doesn’t even appear to be residing in the Chicago area. Probably has a place outside the country—no one seems to know for sure where he’s been, not even Moretti himself. Obviously he has a way to contact him though, or he wouldn’t be here.”
John Paul looked over to me with concern in his eyes.
“Tomorrow we meet with everyone,” Landon told us. “All six family heads and your competition will be there, Bastian. The others aren’t much of a worry, but I want you up close and personal with Arden before you have to take him on. Figure him out. Fuck with his head, if you can—I understand he’s a pretty hard nut to crack.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“He was a POW in the Middle East. It fucked with his head, which is why he was discharged shortly after he was recovered from a camp in Afghanistan. There’s video out there—go watch it. Use it against him.”
“Will do.” I picked up the folder full of information and stood. John Paul followed suit, and he drove me back to the condo where Raine was still trying to study.
“Good workout?” Raine asked. She looked me over, and it was obvious I hadn’t been at the gym.
“I learned a lot,” I responded vaguely. She didn’t press for more, and I wondered if she just didn’t want to know.
“We have to move,” she said suddenly.
“What? Why?”
“We can’t fit us and a kid in this condo,” she said, “and I don’t like the public schools here. We need to move somewhere where Alex can get a good education, and we can get a place that will have enough room for him.”
As I looked around the apartment, I didn’t have much of an argument. She was right; there wasn’t enough room for another person in here even though we did have an extra bedroom.
“A house, maybe?” I said.
“I think that would be nice,” Raine agreed. “Someplace with a yard where he can be outside and play. I don’t want to worry about traffic.”
“Here in Miami?”
“Not in the city,” she said.
I knew what she really meant—not too close to the beach. I didn’t like it, but considering everything else, I wasn’t going to press the issue. She had my back on this, and I’d sacrifice whatever it took to make it work for all of us. Maybe I’d manage to convince her that Alex would benefit from living near the beach.
I went over to the couch and knelt beside her. I looked up into her face and captured her eyes with mine.
“Anything you want,” I told her. “Anywhere you want. I just want us all together when this is over.”
For once, I really meant it.
She bent over and placed her lips on mine.
“I love you,” she said.
“Right back at ya, babe.” I smiled and kissed her back.
I followed John Paul to his car after I made sure Raine was good for the day. I had no idea how long this meeting was going to last or where we were even going. John Paul drove south for some time, and as we reached Homestead and the unending fields of squash filled with migrant workers in wide-brimmed hats, we turned down a gravel road and headed toward a large barn out in the middle of fucking nowhere.
I’d spent the night studying all the documentation Landon had given me. I’d even found a video of a news release about Lieutenant Evan Arden and his capture in the Middle East. It included footage of a man being executed right beside him. I hadn’t studied the others as closely, but I was prepared to meet them all and get a better idea of their weaknesses. For the most part, the rest didn’t concern me.
As we got out of John Paul’s truck, I looked up to see ultralight planes and a few gliders up in the sky. Far across a field of yellow crook-necked squash, I could see a small airfield. Other than that, there was nothing and no one to be seen except for two menacing guys standing by the large double doors of the barn. John Paul’s boots kicked up dusty gravel as we approached, and the guards checked us both for weapons before they opened the doors to allow us inside.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but there were a lot of people in there. They formed six small groups around the mostly open area. I checked each group, silently naming the associated crime lords and their tournament participants.
Gavino Greco from Chicago was the closest to the door. Towering over him was a massive guy sporting hundreds of tattoos. There was enough ink showing on him that I wondered if even his dick was decorated. Aside from his face, he was covered in them. I remembered from the documents Landon had given me that he was called Hunter, and he wasn’t going to be easy to take down in a melee fight though he was mostly a bow-hunting fanatic. Of all the other fighters, he had the most tournament experience, with or without weapons.
The next group was also from Chicago. Since the start of the war and the fall of the last boss in Chicago, the organization had nearly failed completely. It was now run by two guys from Azerbaijan—Sergi Dytalov and Igor Severinov. They were unimpressive figures physically, but they had the most at stake in this little game, and they watched me carefully with calculating eyes as I walked in.
Their representative in the game was nearby, slouched in a chair and glaring at his own hands. His dark hair hung in his face a little, and the look on his face was anything but calm and collected. Erik Dytalov was into knives, according to the information I had on him, especially Busse and Kunai knives. A distant cousin of one of the new bosses, but not Russian born, he’d survived in the games for a couple years before he backed off and eventually quit playing. He hadn’t played for a while now, and I wondered just what he had been doing for the last few years instead of fighting.
To my right was Grant Chamber from the New York mob. There was a woman beside him I was pretty sure I recognized though I hadn’t figured it out from her picture. She was tall, dark-skinned, and had enough muscle on her to make you look twice, no doubt about it. As I looked at her in person, I realized I’d met her before.
“JP?”
“Yeah?” he responded quietly.
“Isn’t that the chick you dated in Seattle? Stacey?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I know. She goes by Reaper now. She’s been playing in the games for about a year.”
Obviously, he wasn’t surprised to see her here. He didn’t look at me, and I wasn’t sure if he cared or not that I was going to be killing her in a couple of w
eeks. If it mattered to him, he didn’t show it.
On the other side of the New York group was an imposing-looking woman with short hair and flashing eyes. I assumed through the process of elimination that it must be Maria Hill—the woman who ran the operations in Los Angeles. The tall African-American guy with her was Tyrone Chimes, an expert in knife combat and a good shot as well. He’d also been in the games for the last year or so.
In the very back, there was a tall, bald man with sausage-like arms and a bit of a gut. He made an imposing figure with two gigantic body guards on either side of him.
Joseph Franks.
I hadn’t seen him since the trial where I testified against him and Gunter Darke. Gunter had been convicted and killed in prison shortly afterwards. Franks, however, had gotten off scot-free even though I’d told the jury he ordered the deaths of everyone in the room. He just had that kind of pull, in and out of the system.
John Paul led the way as we walked toward Franks and his group.
“Sebastian,” Franks said in a cool voice as we approached, “it’s been a while.”
I nodded, took his outstretched hand, and took in a deep breath.
“Mister Franks,” I said. We shook, dropped hands, and looked at each other for a moment.
With guys like Franks, it was all about ego. Everything centered around who was the farthest up his ass at any given time. I’d done the unthinkable and dared to cross him.
For the first time, I considered that I may have been duped. He might have just lured me here to kill me, but as soon as the thought occurred to me, I knew it wasn’t true. If he wanted me dead, he’d just put a price on my head, and it would eventually be collected by someone. He wouldn’t have any need to go through an elaborate plot or involve all these people if my death was his goal.
He narrowed his eyes and leaned close to me.
“You were a bad boy, Mister Stark.”
I swallowed.
“Yeah, I know I was,” I said quietly. “It was a mistake, obviously.”
“A mistake because of what you tried to do,” he asked, “or because it didn’t work?”
I took in a long, slow breath. There was definitely a right answer to his question and a wrong one, but the words he wanted to hear weren’t readily apparent.